Six types of cause: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 12:17, 10 April 2011

The six types of cause (Wyl. rgyu drug) are the basis on which all conditioned things arise. They are:

  1. Acting causes are like the seed to its sprout. This is the general trait of all types of causes.
  2. Cooperating causes are things that mutually uphold one another, like tent-poles in tipi supporting each other.
  3. causes similar to their result when cause and effect are of similar kind, as for example, virtue arising from a virtuous frame of mind or barley growing from barley.
  4. Concurrent causes correspond only to consciousness and mental states which are concurrent in five ways. They are a type of cooperating causes.
  5. Omnipresent causes--here "omnipresent" refering to disturbing emotions, it is just another way of talking about production by phenomena mixed with disturbing emotions.
  6. Causes of karmic ripening which produce pleasurable and painful experiences in samsara. They refer only to defiling virtue or nonvirtue.